Jolly Atagoyuk is a talented printmaker and artist from Qikiqtarjuaq (formerly Broughton Island), NU who now resides in Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), NU. Atagoyuk studied woodcut printmaking at Arctic College before relocating to Iqaluit to further his education where he studied etching, stencil, silk screening, watercolour and oil painting, graduating with a diploma in fine arts.
A long time printmaker at Uqqurmiut, Atagoyuk’s prints engage with Inuit traditions and culture calling upon long-established Inuit aesthetics, figures and imagery with animals and spirit creatures as recurring figures in his pieces. In the print Mother with a Young Seal (2018) Atagoyuk shows the viewer an under ice point-of-view as a seal and her pup swim upwards towards an air hole in the ice. As well as making his own prints Atagoyuk also interprets original drawings from community archives. In 2001 Atagoyuk took part in a jeweller’s course at Arctic College where he was able to quickly pick up metalwork.
Atagoyuk teaches printmaking in Panniqtuuq and attends art festivals across the arctic during the year showing and selling his work. His prints are a part of the 2018 Pangnirtung Print Collection.
Jolly Atagoyuk
Mother with a Young Seal (2018)
Courtesy Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts
Indigenous Art Collection at Indigenous Affairs and Northern Development Canada
Panniqtuuq Releases First Major Print Collection Since 2011, 2018
2018 Pangnirtung Print Collection, 2018